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Leftover ingredients

Well, I managed to eat all of my Thanksgiving stream leftovers, which was no small feat. I definitely gained a few pounds over the last couple weeks, but that's life, right? Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), I have a few leftover ingredients that I need to get through. Some of them didn't last, like the small carrot that I had peeled and didn't use. Y'all know I hate wasting shit, but some things had to get tossed. Luckily, the leftover sweet potato, turnip, and celery still had some life in them, so I used those first.
I diced up about half of the sweet potato and about half of the turnip and boiled them in some salted water. I had to let that go for a while to soften up the turnip (the sweet potato goes a little faster). Now, when I say "for a while," I really mean "for-fucking-ever." While that was going...
...I went ahead and pan fried some adobo chicken legs in butter and olive oil...
...sautéed a chopped celery stalk with a few thinly sliced mushrooms in butter with a generous amount of black pepper...
...and caramelized some minced red onion and sliced garlic in butter.
When the potato and turnip were finally done boiling, I drained the water, then put them back into my pot with the onion and garlic, plus a couple tablespoons of butter and a dash of cream to get them nice and mashed.
Granted, the turnip was still a tiny bit chunky, but I don't like my mashed roots being fully smooth. 
It was still creamy enough that I was able to drag it a bit across my plate. Maybe could have been a little smoother for trying that, but it worked well enough.
Of course, dropping a chicken leg and the other veggies on opposite ends of the smear gave what I thought was a nice look. That nice little pop of light orange under the darker food is my kind of contrast. Of course, the mash tasted fantastic: it's sweet potato, turnip, garlic, onion, and butter. The only way I know to fuck that up would be to burn at least 4 of the ingredients, and that's still just a maybe. Everything else was fine, but that mash made me giggle.
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  1. NerdyCapDecember 4, 2024 at 10:17 AM

    I love the "mash made me giggle" lol. I understand this on a spiritual level. Sometimes you just put stuff together and the product you get is just so good you just giggle, almost like you proved yourself wrong. It's a nice confidence boost too because you realize "Oh shit, maybe I do know what I am doing" and god those moments are nice. Great looking dish, I would have asked for seconds.

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